The marbll experiment: towards a martian wind lidar

Operating a lidar on Mars would address the crucial need of monitoring wind and aerosol profiles in the boundary layer. We report recent developments of a compact direct-detection wind lidar designed to be accomodated on landed platforms or rovers. A new laser source has been developed and an azimutal scanning capability has been added. Preliminary results of a field campaign are presented. The lessons learnt from this campaign in view of putative lidar measurements on Mars are also discussed.